Digitally controllable lighting provides more possibilities than functional or simple decorative lighting. The presence of multiple controllable illumination sources in the same room or area makes it possible to create lighting effects that are variable in space and time. These lighting effects can include changes in light intensity, colour, colour temperature, and/or spatial distribution of the light (depending on the type of illumination sources and related drivers available). More and more, lighting is perceived by end users not only as a functional need, but also as something to use to create an atmosphere or ambience in a given space.
For instance, atmosphere creation can be beneficial for retailers. E.g. a suitable lighting atmosphere in a physical store can provide customers with a shopping experience that differentiates the store from handy online shopping, or that differentiates it from other nearby stores. As another example, a lighting atmosphere can also be used to attract customers to a particular display or product area, or influence their shopping habits. Nonetheless, advanced digitally controllable lighting still has a relatively low market penetration in retail due to difficult and costly commissioning and recommissioning procedures. These costs apply not only to the first set up of a new system, but also to the periodic or frequent reconfigurations of stores (for example when new promotions are being displayed, or when in-store furniture such as shelving, display stands, product bins and/or points-of-sale are shifted around to different locations within the store, e.g. seasonally or when there is a sale). Current state of the art commissioning tooling allows only for the creation lighting scenes on a fixed basis based on the intended usage of the lighting system. When the store is reconfigured, the scenes have to be manually redesigned.
Some known lighting systems use presence sensors to dynamically adapt the lighting in dependence on occupancy, to turn on and off or dim up and down the light in a given area in dependence on whether a person is detected to be present in that given area. WO2009/090598 also discloses adapting a lighting atmosphere in a given area, e.g. a shop, in dependence on the sensed occupancy in that area.
Patent application DE 102005029728 A1 relates to an arrangement for controlling the intensity of road lighting, comprising one or more mobile devices which can be identified, a network for locating these mobile devices, one or more road lighting elements and a controller for receiving information about the location of the mobile devices and for determining appropriate road lighting requirements therefrom and for controlling the road lighting elements accordingly. The controller may control only road lighting elements in the direct vicinity of, for example, pedestrians, motorists or cyclists, and the remaining lighting of main traffic routes can be dimmed or turned off completely in certain areas. The illuminated zone ‘moves’ with the mobile device and thus with its carrier.
Patent application GB 2481721A relates to a mobile telecommunications network including a core and a radio access network having radio means for wireless communication with mobile terminals registered with the network, wherein the radio access network includes control means operable to control the use of network resources by said mobile terminals, wherein the control means is operable to collect information relating to said mobile terminals (e.g. location, movement) and to control the operation of external resources, such as street furniture in the vicinity of the each of the mobile terminals, in dependence on the information.